STERLING SILVER GIFTS TO OUR BOAT AND OUR SPONSOR

I apologize for these photos being so late after USS NORTH DAKOTA’s October 25th commissioning, but it simply took quite awhile to get them together and then it took me awhile to go through hundreds of photos and edit them down.

I was given an opportunity on November 1, 2013, to go on board our unfinished boat to look for a place in either the mess decks or the wardroom with enough space to accommodate a gift from us to our boat. It was readily apparent that nothing could be given that had to hang on a bulkhead (wall) as most of those vertical surfaces were taken up by various cabinets. But in the wardroom there is a small display case, which was big enough for a gift from us.

Our USS North Dakota Committee decided that an ideal gift for our boat from the people of North Dakota and her builders would be a sterling silver punch bowl somewhat as a replica of the very large silver punch bowl as part of the forty piece silver set given to the first USS NORTH DAKOTA in 1910.

I was in Delhi, India, in March 2014, and with the help of a travel agent found a silversmith who could make this for us. It’s a long and rather painful story, but this photo shows the sterling silver punch bowl they built for us, and which was not seen in person by anyone from our committee until the morning of Friday, October 24, 2014. There was no room for error as we presented it to Captain Gordon that evening at the Chairman’s Dinner. Fortunately he and the Chief of the Boat Tim Preabt loved it “as is.” They took control of it and it proudly rests in the display case on board USS NORTH DAKOTA.

Unfortunately our photographer was not able to take many photos of the punch bowl at the Chairman’s Dinner , so the following photos were taken months later when he was finally able to catch up with the boat in port. This is a view of the side with a “Grandma Moses” type of rough image and lettering. Our one disappointment was that the silversmith had to rush completion and the lettering and images suffered. However, it is a beautiful piece and the crew loves it!

This image looks down into the bowl showing the eagle relief on one side.

Another photo of the side with the image of our boat.

Detail of the eagle on the side with the first USS NORTH DAKOTA image and lettering.

This photo shows the presentation by Governor Jack Dalrymple of the sterling silver punch bowl at the Chairman’s Dinner on October 24, 2013. Left to right are United States Representative Kevin Cramer, Governor Jack Dalrymple, USS North Dakota Committee Vice Chairman Bill Butcher, Captain Doug Gordon, Chairman Bob Wefald and Treasurer Kelvin Hulett.

We also gave a sterling silver gift to our beautiful Ship’s Sponsor Katie Fowler. Unfortunately we did not get a good photo of Katie with her gift at the Chairman’s Dinner so these two photos also took several months.

This is a close up photo of the sterling silver tray Katie was given.

I will prepare a more detailed narrative of the entire process we went though to get these gifts on made and timely received so they could be presented at the Chairman’s Dinner.